Pete Ashton's Notes & Links

Photography

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An interview with Joe Sacco Includes a deep dive into the importance of underground comics (along …

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All Protocols are Not the Same: Joanne McNeil on Bluesky If Bluesky were like a physical mail …

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Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse “I feel there’s a 5,000-pound mouse breathing down my neck.” 35 …

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Jonathan Chandler interviewed by Hayley Campbell As a teen I would go into the Ipswich comic shop …

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Why are all social networks structured around being either loosely public to the entire world, or …

: What knots knot knots
It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell …

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Boo-yay!

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Don’t Bleed on the Artwork A beautiful piece of writing, ostensibly about working in a picture …

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Molly Soda’s .gif guide An antidote to the shopping bollocks, internet archaeologist Molly …

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Trump’s Fans Are Suffering From Tony Soprano Syndrome Not really news, but of note as it starts with …

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No shade on writers trying to put food on the table by whatever means they can, but shit like this …

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Big Thick Rivers, in map form! A gorgeous overlay for OpenStreetMap. The more upstreams a river …

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TIL the word lettuce is derived from lac, the Latin for “milk”, due to the milky fluid …

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The War on Poverty Is Over. Rich People Won. About the USA, but it’s notable none of his …

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Bit torn on the Observer/Guardian strike this week. On the one hand, always support striking …

: Crappy digital cameras are the new expired film
I’d been hearing that the kids were all into vintage digital cameras these days because they …

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What does Werner Herzog’s nihilist penguin teach us about life? The natural world, as we learnt …

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A delightfully rambling interview with Craig Thompson, author of Blankets, about, amongst other …

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The Imminence of the Destruction of the Space Program Runaway orbital pollution is increasing the …

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The computer got quickly took the lead in Probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe last night and I resolved to …

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The “random” flickering of an LED tea light is generated by sound chips from musical …

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Endocrine management of transgender adolescents A report from the French Society of Pediatric …

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Give Me Your Tired Stories I do not believe long-term illness necessarily makes me uninteresting as …

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Matt McGorry on having long Covid As many of you will know, long Covid has fucked me over the last …

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After discovering the Prodigy’s Firestarter is built on a Breeders riff I’ve been …

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This plan to pipe electricity from Morocco to the UK is actually fairly plausible and will probably …

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Modernity is stupid An epic rant I could quote at length because it me actually. But you know what, …

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The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win I have a bias, when understanding our current …

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The End of The Twitter Era Nearly two decades of my online life, for better and worse, was defined …

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This crossword calendar, in which each month grid is filled with intersecting words, is fun and cool …

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Archaeologists Are Bewildered by a Skeleton Made From the Bones of at Least Eight People Who Died …

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Anil Dash’s lessons learned from burning things One thing I like to do is make fires. It’s …

: David Graeber's Dawn of Everything
I’m about a quarter through listening to the audiobook of The Dawn of Everything by David …

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Today’s photos taken in an attempt to achieve mindfulness, or whatever. …

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And so we enter the Cold War Steve jigsaw endgame - the traditional monochromatic sky where every …

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My brain has registered it’s winter and therefore @coldwarsteve.bsky.social jigsaw time. …

: Another Rachel Bloom interview I feel compelled to quote at length
I’m currently mainlining Rachel Bloom songs, started looking up reviews of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend …

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The day Tom Cruise came to Birmingham.

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Niece asked for advice on SLR vs mirrorless cameras and I went on a long rumination about the …

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Laurie Penny has relaunched their newsletter. I got a lot from Laurie’s writing back in the …

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text2dragonforce LICENSE.TXT

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The oldest forest in the world In 2018 Charles Van Straeten’s palaeobotany team discovered the …

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My sister is emigrating (returning?) to the UK from New Zealand next month. Among the insane …

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I see the UK branch of the culture war has shifted to concern for the fate of family farms. …

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Why is London’s phone signal so bad? A really thorough and accessible explainer of how your …

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The Amazon Tax is when you buy a thing on the internet for, say, £20 and it turns out to be shite, …

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The Counterculture Switch: creating in a hostile environment I’ve really appreciated and …

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The land of milk and honey was dismal A look back, with context and interviews, at the …

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How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world Carole Cadwalladr often comes …

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A humorous illustration by Darren Cullen. (via)

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Point Nemo, the Most Remote Place on Earth A nice long read about the furthest point from land in …

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Tickets for Caption 2025 are on sale.. Back in the 1990s early 2000s Caption was the annual …

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Birmingham’s composting project, Compost Connections, revamped their website and I copyedited …

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Saw Megalopolis, which I enjoyed mostly for the audacity of the thing. I was really struck by how …

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You know how when photography freed painting from the need to be representational and it all went a …

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How to make your phone go darker For those who read their phone in bed to keep the brain demons …

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How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities The summary here would be “you don’t hate …

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Coupla rabbits for ya.

: Diversity often thrives at the edge of settled law - Erik Davis on the cantina
High-pope of the weird Erik Davis wonders where his rejection of bigotry and xenophobia comes from …

: If you want to make something happen, you gotta get the tinfoil.
I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed Rachel Bloom’s new standup show Death, Let Me Do My …

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I do like how the listing for micro.blog on fedidb is for “microdotblog”, presumably …

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Switched to a different slab of scaffolding plank to make the next shelf support which turned out to …

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Working on the shelf itself today. Always a delight how lovely the wood is underneath the rough cut. …

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Tegan O’Neil on Nemesis the Warlock How do you review one of the most batshit British …

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The Hallucinogeneration Game – Terence McKenna & The Shamen I’m deep in the McKenna …

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Feel strangely calm today, after weeks (months?) of debilitating stress. It’s sort of like, …

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I cannot write a witty enough comment to match the astronomical level of joy this video gave me.

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A World War III Illustrated roundtable WW3 Illustrated is an underground anthology of leftist and …

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The Apprentice movie is good! By far the most disturbing thing is how Roy Cohn emerges a sympathetic …

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The art, artists and artifice of Charles Burns I recently read and was blown away by Burn’s …

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TCJ review of The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic I plan to treat myself to a copy of this …

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Made a couple more shelf brackets. Nice to see the shape is settling into something aesthetically …

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Erik Davis profiles Joanna Newsom in 2006 I got this copy of Arthur magazine for Alan Moore’s …

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David Lynch’s Elusive Language I was struck by how Henry Fonda’s performance in Fail Safe …

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New Cure album is good. Like, really good.

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Watched two films today, the new Woman of the Hour from Anna Kendrick and the 1664 cold war thriller …

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Second attempt at a shelf bracket. Less shaving with the rasp this time and flattened the shape to …

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Made my first shelf bracket. Needs refining but really happy with the results. #woodworking

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Thinking about Richard Long’s A Line Made By Walking. www.tate.org.uk/art/artwo…

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We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things A thoughtful meditation from Deb Chachra on what we actually …

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The Many Lives of Null Island A deep-dive into some hardcore mapping arcana. “Null …

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Gamergate at 10 Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends, aka Caitlin Dewey, is doing a bunch of …

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Turning Brownfields to Blooming Meadows, With the Help of Fungi Before I got Covid I was involved in …

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The Doc Web One of those “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and someone has …

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The Hedgehog Olympics We recently had hedgehogs in our garden, which caused me to join Hedgehog …

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Gary Panter’s ROZZ-TOX Manifesto An artefact from the 1980s LA punk-art scene. When I found …

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Danny Sriskandarajah - the radical who left Oxfam to fight for democracy A really interesting …

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Eight Years Ago at the RNC Molly Crabapple has posted drawings from her reporting on Trump’s …

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Wyrd Britain A new-to-me but 10 year old blog to be added to my list of things that use the word …

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The coming storm, part 2 Charlie Stross’s state-of-the-world overview, linked to for the …

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Mary H.K. Choi - What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained Another writer in their 40s …

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Paul B. Rainey’s Why Don’t You Love Me? optioned by Jennifer Lawrence and A24 For most of you the …

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Earthrise A lovely short documentary from 2018 about the photographs of Earth taken from the lunar …

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The Rise and Fall of Earthrise This is so relevant to my interests it’s almost a parody. A …

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Could you forgive your childhood bully? Katy Wix confronts a painful memory I read Wix’s …

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The Universe with Dr. Katie Mack and John Green I’m not a big fan of podcasts for anything …

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On Not Being Online Warren Ellis commenting on Jay Springett talking about the internet feeling flat …

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What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? I’m a big fan of journalists …

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In defense of an old pixel A lovely look at the history of pixel fonts, that is to say letters made …

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What lies beneath the Labour ‘landslide’ election predictions? John Harris visits my …

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I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again Deliciously long but firmly hinged rant about …

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UbuWeb’s Conceptual Comics collection If you’re the kind of nerd who finds how comics …

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Protect the Network Noah Kalina has collected photos of trees that have been pruned around power and …

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“Debilitating a Generation”: Expert Warns That Long COVID May Eventually Affect Most Americans …

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Money, Magic and the Imagination I find ritual money burners fascinating because even though I get …

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How to Copy a File From a 30-year-old Laptop Chap has some audio files stuck on an old MacBook, so …

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The Purpose of a System is What It Does The first of what is hopefully an in-depth guide from Anil …

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The green-energy revolution shows what real innovation looks like Decorating some really interesting …

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Tramps! As someone who came of age in the late 80s, early 90s, I sort of expected my young adulthood …

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What the Internet Was Like in 2004 I was perfectly primed for the 2004 Web 2.0 internet having been …

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For tech CEOs, the dystopia is the point A concise explanation of why these billionaire weirdos keep …

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Milky Way photographer of the year 2024 By now you’ve probably seen a fair few long exposure …

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Plugin Beachball Success While updating my art website I recalled seeing Jon Satrom’s “prepared …

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20th Anniversary remasters of A Night At The Hip-Hopera and Yoshimi Battles The Hip-Hop Robots If …

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The Lunacy of Artemis A deep-dive into the clusterfuck that appears to be NASA’s plans to put people …

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It rained on the Sunday: a career interview with Roger Corman Loads of good stuff. I particularly …

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Ghost’s development of ActivityPub is going well. Our initial work has largely revolved around a …

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On Wishcycling A deep-dive into the origins and various interpretations of the term “wishcycling” on …

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Some mad genius has combined Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland in one exhibition. 15 May–25 August, …

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Generative AI Is Totally Shameless. I Want to Be It. Paul Ford: AI is like having my very own …

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Utopian Realism, a speech by Bruce Sterling Transcript of a long speech by Sterling that starts of …

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‘I was in a kind of ecstatic freefall’: artist Miranda July on writing the book that could change …

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Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm (video) Curiously I never saw this music video in the 80s …

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R.I.P. Steve Albini Fuck. (The Quietus)

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No one buys books A fantastically detailed breakdown of the batshit economic reality of the book …

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Language of flowers Filed under “stuff I never knew I never knew”. Floriography …

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‘The courgettes were so good last year, I got a tattoo of one’: life on a Birmingham …

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RIP Trina Robbins (tcj.com) One of the key figures in western comics, from the feminist …

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All issues of Escape Magazine are on the Internet Archive (archive.org) This is probably the most …

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We Need To Rewild The Internet - Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon (Noema) The story of German …

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The Aerobic Digest: issue 12 My monthly-ish composting newsletter went out this morning.

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Yan Wang Preston – gloriously confronting art history in the nude (Guardian) Wang Preston’s …

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We can have a different web (Molly White) The thing is: none of this is gone. Nothing about the web …

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Notes from Inside the Ecosystem: Joanne McNeil on Apple Vision Pro (filmmakermagazine.com) When I …

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What is the correct speed limit for cities? (YouTube) It’s a trick question - the answer is …

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Streaming Follows a Trail Paved by Thieves and Pirates (Pixel Envy) Paid streaming services are not …

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The 1918 Flu Pandemic Killed Millions. So Why Does Its Cultural Memory Feel So Faint? (Slate) …

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Efficiency Is Biting Back (The Atlantic) Efficiency, in fact, can be hazardous to our well-being, …

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Toiletpaperfullerenes and Charmin Nanotubes (Observable) Toilet paper tubes have the curious …

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The most important technology critic in the world was tired of knowledge based on clicks. So he …

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Hail the maintainers (Aeon) Capitalism excels at innovation but is failing at maintenance, and for …

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‘Allostatic Load’ is the Psychological Reason for Our Pandemic Brain Fog (Vice) I’m …

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Coronavirus Is Making a Lot of People Anxious and Depressed. But Some Sufferers Actually Feel Better …

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Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting (Medium) Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how …

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We Are Living in a Failed State (The Atlantic) The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed …

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HKMask Manual ( Unofficial ) Reusable DIY Cloth Mask with Disposable Middle Layer Filter. Cloth …

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Adjust your clocks: lockdown is bending time completely out of shape | Jonathan Freedland | The …

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Painting the shed roof today.

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🔗 Teenage bloodbath: the 2010s in review A solid State of the Union from Sam Kriss, poking at Rise …

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🔗 What the Death of iTunes Says About Our Digital Habits A decade ago I was a digital hoarder. I was …

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🔗 Interview with Adam Minter, author of Junkyard Planet On the wonderfully titled blog Discard …

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Found this rock which looked like it had been sliced by a sushi chef.

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🔗 Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Snowflakes I’ve been fascinated by the study of snowflakes …

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🔗 Proposal for a book to be adapted into a movie starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson An oldie by Robin …

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Surprisingly good sunset for a January holiday in Wales…

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🔗 Brian Taylor to Adapt Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy as a TV Show …

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🔗 London’s electric buses are getting fake noise. I love stories about how new technological …

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🔗 This is How a Society Dies Sober and lacerating analysis of the terminal decline of US and British …

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🔗 A Frank Conversation with My Rabbi About The Rise of Skywalker Judaism has always struck me as the …

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🔗 136 Mindblowing & Groundbreaking Internet Videos I remember when you felt you’d seen all …

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Misty in Birmingham last night.

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🔗 The Blundering Brilliance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson A rather hagiographic explainer of …

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So it seems LED Xmas lights flash at a high, but not that high, frequency rather than stay on …

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🔗 Be Gay, Do Crimes. Untitled Goose Game: Is it Good to be Bad? Grace does a deep dive into the …

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🔗 Please for the love of Blarg, Start a Blog A call to get all that great stuff off Twitter and back …

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🔗 For the many A more sober than usual piece by Sam Kris on why you should seriously consider voting …

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🔗 New Atheism: An Autopsy A nice overview of whatever happened to the New Atheist movement that was …

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🔗 On the Farm Daisy Hildyard discusses animal sentience with the great anecdote of cows so …

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🔗 Cyberpunk is Dead by John Semley Nice overview of all that was Cyberpunk back in the 80s, from the …

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🔗 Sasha Baron Cohen Says Tech Companies Built the “Greatest Propaganda Machine in …

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Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart was one of the best movies of this year and for some reason I found …

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🔗 John Doran on Sunn O))) and how their brand of doom metal has defined the decade. Not unexpected, …

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Here’s what I’ve been picking up from the people I meet, the audiences I speak to and the stories …

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🔗 In 2029, the Internet Will Make Us Act Like Medieval Peasants This is a wonderfully insightful …

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Craig Mod, from his newsletter: Folks mistakenly think only new walks are good walks. But the best …

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Eyes full of tears, by Fiona.

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🔗 The social ideology of the motorcar This essay from 1973 about the way cars took over and broke …

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Saw Hamish Fulton talk last weekend. Suddenly remembered he ran a group slow walk in Birmingham in …

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🔗 Dan Hon: Everything Is Political From his regular newsletter, skip the Snow Crash stuff (unless …

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🔗 Bright green environmentalism “Environmentalists who believe that radical changes are needed …

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🔗 Inside the iPhone 11 Camera, Part 1: A Completely New Camera Computational photography continues …

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So we were just outside of Plymouth in a bedsit apartment overlooking the sea during an 80mph …

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The sea, the sea.

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Tim Shaw performing at Walking’s New Movements, Plymouth.

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Walking’s New Movements conference, Friday evening.

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🔗 Autism profiles and diagnostic criteria. A very useful breakdown of the terminology and potential …

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🔗 UK renewables generate more electricity than fossil fuels for first time. 🔗 Rise of renewables may …

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Went to the MAC to see Black Men Walking, a play about black men walking in the Peak District. It …

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Fungus season

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Tonight’s film was Theory of Obscurity​: a film about The Residents, about a band I’ve …

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Johnson’s Britain and Corbyn’s Britain are vastly different countries, on starkly divergent paths. …